2023-04-17 16:32:29
SpaceX has postponed this Monday in extremis the first test flight of Starship, he most powerful rocket ever built and designed for send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
takeoff was aborted minutes before the scheduled time due to a pressurization problem in the drive stage, as reported by SpaceX.
The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, has explained that a pressure valve seemed to be frozen, which forced the postponement of the launch scheduled for 3:20 p.m. Spanish time) from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.
“We anticipate a minimum of 48 hours before that we can try this test flight again,” a SpaceX employee said in a video issued by the company. In any case, they were fixed dates for upcoming tests during the week, something Musk had already considered.
The tycoon had said on Sunday during an event on the Twitter network Spaces that it is “a very risky flight.” “It is the first launch of a very complex and gigantic rocket,” he said.
“There’s a million ways in which this rocket can fail. We will be very careful And if we see anything that worries us, we will postpone it,” he had advanced.
Supercohete
US space agency NASA chose the Starship spaceship for put astronauts on the Moon by the end of 2025 (in a mission named Artemis III) for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.
With a height of 120 meters, Starship belongs to the category of superheavy Throwers, capable of carrying more than 100 tons of payload to orbit. Its takeoff power must be more than double that of the legendary Saturn V, the rocket of the famous Apollo lunar program (111 meters).
Starship consists of a reusable capsule about 50 meters high that transports the equipment and the load located in the upper part of the propulsor Super Heavy first phase, about 70 meters.
suborbital trials
The spacecraft and Super Heavy booster have never been flown in combination, however they have already been flown various trials of suborbital flights of the spacecraft.
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The original plan calls for the Super Heavy booster to be separated from the ship. three minutes after launch to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship, what’s wrong with it six own engines, will continue until an altitude of about 240 kilometers, completing almost one orbit of Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 90 minutes after launch.“If it reaches orbit it will be a huge success,” Musk said Sunday. “If we get far enough from the platform before something goes wrong, then I think I could consider it a success.” added the tycoon. “The payload of this mission is information. Information that will improve the design of future Starship builds,” Musk explained.
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